12.05.2013

sometimes you win some....

okay so today i am going to open up to you.
i have been struggling with my weight. for a long time. i know a lot of you have as well.
mine stems from being pregnant. i gained so much with my daughter then got pregnant with my son so quick i never got back and it just seemed to stick.

but wait...it started sooner than that...i guess i should go back to the beginning.....

growing up i was a ballerina. have i said that here?
and i not talking i just took lessons.
i took lessons EVERY DAY. 4 - 5 hours a day about.
and on saturdays.
i was committed. it was my life. it was all i knew.

the year i turned 10 {technically i was 9} i auditioned for the royal winnepeg ballet and the toronto national ballet summer schools. usually you audition for both, hoping you get into one.
i got into both. i got to choose.
i was the only one from my school to do so. actually i was the only one from my year to get in anywhere that summer.
but that really didn't matter.
i was still put at the back of the class because i wasn't pretty enough or perfect enough. little things that yes - 8, 9 and 10 years old's - notice and absorb.
i ended up choosing the royal winnepeg, went for the summer, was asked to stay for the three year boarding school program - i declined the offer to stay...i was only 10 at the time.....

i loved my time as a ballerina - loved it! - but i think this is where my sense of i'm-never-good-enough stems from. i know it's where. and that stinks.

no one talked about bullying back then. about being nice no matter what. those days ballerinas were tough.
they were mean.
i never felt like i fit in but it was my passion.
and the teachers were too. i was told many times at the age of 12 that i was more over-weight than the others and to fix it. i really wasn't. i was taller and had broader shoulders, that's about it.

this stuck with me. i have carried it for a long time.
i realize now this is why i am SO hard on myself. i strive soooo hard for perfection because i feel anything less is failure. i have yo-yo'd with my weight and self image for a while now, falling into all the stereo-typical pot holes - striving to be sooo skinny to fit in {because all my friends were shorter than me and typically smaller but 16, 17 year old don't clue into that}, being in a relationship and letting yourself go, being almost out of the relationship so you go to extreme's again, trying fad diets, being so happy with one's situation that who cares, being pregnant and liberated {maybe a little too much! ha!} then being so exhausted that you don't care. that's when i woke up.

i decided this summer - enough was enough.
i decided that 36 was going to be a shinnier version of me.
i decided i really didn't like that number staring back at me.
i realized that problem all along was me. my decisions. my choices. no one else was to blame.
i am so glad i realized all this!
that was 3 months and 14 pounds ago.

that's the best part....i have seen results.
{i now really wished i had taken a before and after photo.}

i feel better. i look better. the changes in my choices have been minimal but rewarding.
do-able, not challenging.
i also feel better about myself. i feel like i have found my balance.
merry christmas to me.

:)


1 comment:

Shalagh Hogan said...

Wow. Your story is probably common in the ballet world. And we as women are so prey to valuing ourselves for our outsides anyway. I finally lost my weight 8 years after the baby only to then get immediately pregnant at 46 years old. It is what it is until it isn't anymore. And congratulations for the gift you give yourself every day when you value how you feel by doing something to counteract feeling badly. Each time I go and exercise, I feel great about it and myself.
Good thoughts to you,
Shalagh